Bloody, Great Film

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 2006)

While the idea of zombies run amok in London seems like the premise of the film, there is a lot more here. I can't help but wonder if folks who didn't really like this film are actually reacting to their own mistaken expectations.
Actually, the film invites us to think about the horror of violence in human nature: if the "zombies" are not terrifying enough simply as zombies (and they are pretty disturbing), the idea that we are already among the enraged zombies is perhaps more disturbing.
The film follows Jim (Cillian Murphy) around London, as he awakes from a coma to find the city deserted. He encounters two other waifs, Selina and Mark, and from them learns that a virus has unleashed the normally suppressed hatred in humanity. The whole city has killed itself. In saving herself from the infected, Selina has become hardened and anti-social, but encountering a father and daughter makes her realize that surviving at all costs may not the best option.
The high point of this film for me is Christopher Eccleston as Major West, who supposedly rescues Jim, Selina, and Hannah but has ulterior motives. His cool, calm exploitation of these people reminds us that while civilization may hide our basic aggression, civilized people may be just as cruel as the bestial infecteds.
The film recalls scenes of horror in Sarajevo, in Poland, in Phenom Phen and in colonial America: a really moving (and terrifying) film that is hard to watch at times and very very hard to forget.